Life

Vanhoenacker and Carfrae Put On a Show in Austria

The crowd goes wild as records were smashed at IRONMAN Austria.

by Volker Boch

History can be made at any moment, and after a much slower swim than predicted, experts couldn't have predicted that such a close race could occur at the 18th IRONMAN Austria. When the winners were awarded, everyone was convinced that they had been part of something special in Klagenfurt. In the end, Marino Vanhoenacker (BEL) and Mirinda Carfrae (AUS) came out on top.

History in the making

The men's swim in the Lake Woerthersee was remarkably slow. Brazil's Thiago Vinhal was the first pro athlete to exit the water in 52:34. Compared to previous years the swim was about six minutes slower. But this didn't really bother Vanhoenacker. The seven-time champion was in third place after the swim, four seconds behind the lead and seemed to be pretty relaxed. Although there had been rumor about another record breaking day in Klagenfurt, Vanhoenacker concentrated only on his main goal: his eighth win here. Last July, Ronnie Schildknecht took his eighth win at the IRONMAN Switzerland being the first athlete ever to celebrate so many victories at one single event.

When Vanhoenacker started the bike ride, he looked and felt super comfortable—thanks to some extraordinary weeks of training. A strong trio immediately started into an offensive breakaway under his regency. Vanhoenacker, Antony Costes (FRA) and the Austrian IRONMAN rookie Paul Reitmayr put two minutes only on the first 20 kilometers on the chase group. After 40 kilometers the gap was four minutes, when they hit the 90-km-mark, the lead was five minutes. Vanhoenacker executed a solid game plan—he didn't over-pace and he waited just the right amount of time before he made his move with 30 kilometers to go on the bike. On the final section of the course he was able to drop Costes and Reitmayr by four minutes. While 2015 runner-up Michael Weiss was about five minutes down in T2, strong runners like Bart Aernouts (BEL), three-time Klagenfurt champ Viktor Zyemtsev, David Plese (SLO), and Alessandro Degasperi (ITA) were more than 10 minutes behind.

Vanhoenacker knew that he might feel the effect of the fastest bike ride of the day later in the run and that he would have to suffer a little, but he didn't show any signs of weakness on the course. Weiss attacked hard to get into second place after 16 kilometers, but he wasn't able to make any time on Vanhoenacker. Zyemtsev passed Weiss with 17 kilometers to go and shortly before the finish, Degasperi did so too. But no one had a chance to touch Vanhoenacker on his way into the history books with a 8:04:18 finish.

The history continues

Even Carfrae didn't seem to have the best chance to pull off an extraordinary race after exiting Lake Woerthersee. 59:15 in the water isn't considered fast, but the Australian needed only a few kilometers on the bike to take over the lead. After 20 kilometers she was in front and started hammering through the course. It may have surprised spectators that Carfrae had the best bike split and secured this impressive win with a great cycling race, but this was exactly the performance she needed to put herself back on track again after dropping out at the IRONMAN World Championship last October as the defending champion.

After 120 kilometers the strong Austrian Michaela Herlbauer was only three minutes behind and seemed to be strong enough to downsize the gap further, but just the opposite happened. Carfrae had put together a comfortable six minute lead when she started on the run. Thanks to her great bike split the course record of Linsey Corbin seemed not too far-off for the 35-year-old. Breaking the 8:42:42 barrier Carfrae had to run a 2:50:31. And she delivered. The Australian nailed a 1:23 half marathon which was the door-opener to one of the fastest marathons in IRONMAN history and to set a new course record in front of a crazy audience. "I didn't think that this would be possible today," said Carfrae. Runner-up Herlbauer stormed under the 9-hour-line while Elisabeth Gruber celebrated a third place finish.